Description

Charlie Bucket appears in two of Roald Dahl's stories: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - which has been adapted into two films, an opera and a stage musical - and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

Charlie lives with his mother, his father and his four grandparents in a little wooden house near a great town. Well, he does the first time we meet him, anyway.

Charlie and his family don't have much money. That means they don't have much to eat. Which makes the fact that there is a great big Chocolate Factory in his very own town all the more difficult for poor Charlie. Because more than anything else, Charlie loves chocolate - Wonka chocolate especially. His very favourite is the Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight bar. You could even say this is his lucky bar. It is, after all, the bar that changes Charlie's life...

When he finds a Golden Ticket in that Wonka chocolate bar, Charlie's luck starts to change. From touring Mr Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory to bursting through its roof in the Great Glass Elevator, that little flash of gold is only the beginning of his adventures. Mr Wonka personally escorts him round his chocolate factory - then appoints him as his successor. He visits outer space with his entire family - and ends up outsmarting some very unpleasant Vermicious Knids. He witnesses his old grandparents return all the way to babyhood after some ill-advised experiments with Wonka Vite. Then, to top it all off, he gets invited to dinner at the White House.

And yet throughout all of his adventures, little Charlie keeps his cool. He really is, as Grandpa George says in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, "a fine little fellow."

On the big screen, the role of Charlie has been played by Peter Ostrum (in 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005.)